The Popcorn Bowl
by dangerdonut
Summary: A oneshot of a few of the events in the S2 promo, centering around when Karma and Amy's hands meet in the popcorn bowl.


Ever since Amy told Karma her true feelings for her, things had been, well, _weird_. It started with Amy sleeping with Liam Booker. She didn't mean to complicate an already complicated situation, but she was drunk, and he was hurt, and she was hurt, and well, things got weird. Of course she regretted it the second she woke up the next morning, but regret couldn't undo her stupid, drunk actions.

It only got weirder when Karma came over the next afternoon after Amy had returned from the pharmacy. She heard Karma coming up the stairs and quickly hid the rest of her morning after pills in her nightstand drawer. She stood there awkwardly as Karma walked into her room, clearly upset with what had happened the night before. "Amy…" she started.

"Karma…"

"I'm sorry. Amy, if I would have known-"

"It's not your fault. Can we just forget it ever happened?"

"But Amy-"

"Please, Karma. It was stupid. I just want things to go back to the way they were before all of this happened. Can't we just forget about it? Forget the last 24 hours ever happened?"

Karma paused, looking down at her hands. She was upset. She wasn't sure why she was upset, but she was. Amy had completely opened up to her for the first time in weeks, and she was pulling back again. Karma wanted things to go back to the way they were more than anyone, but this just seemed _weird_.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Karma asked.

"You know what I want, Karma. But that's never gonna happen, and I don't blame you."

"What do you mean you don't blame me? Why are you putting yourself down?"

"I'm a terrible friend, Karma," Amy stared down at the ground.

"Amy," Karma stepped closer to her friend. "Just because you caught feelings for me doesn't make you a terrible friend. If anything, I'm the terrible friend for not seeing it." Karma felt sick with guilt, but it was only a fraction of what Amy was feeling. "Come here," Karma said, engulfing Amy in a hug. Amy hugged her back, but it just added to the guilt when she felt butterflies. She loved her so much it was painful, but she was adamant on shedding her feelings and going back to being best friends.

"Wanna watch a movie?" Karma asked. "I'll let you pick it out. I think you deserve it."

"Um, y-yeah. Sure."

"Great! Now let's get out of these clothes and into some sweats," Karma said before taking her shirt off. Amy couldn't help but stare. She was completely thrown off by the fact that Karma would change in front of her less than twenty four hours after Amy declared her love for her. She stared at her chest before feeling guilty, but she couldn't look away so she met Karma's eyes, still looking like a deer in the headlights.

"What?" Karma asked, genuinely confused. Amy couldn't move. She just stared at her looking exponentially more frightened as time went on. "Oh!" Karma said, turning around. Amy looked directly up at the ceiling as soon as Karma turned around. "Fuck fuck fuck. Amy, I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. I'm just so used to… fuck. Can you, um. Can you throw me one of your shirts?"

"Oh god," Amy said, fumbling around her dresser, throwing her the first shirt she could find. Karma quickly put it on.

"I'm gonna, um. I'm gonna go change in the bathroom," Karma said before grabbing Amy's sweats and making her way out of her room.

"Shit, Karma, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I really didn't."

"No! No, you um. It was my fault. I'm uh… be right back."

It was weird. It only got weirder as the night went on. They made their way downstairs and made popcorn and put in a movie. Lauren, still upset about her breakup with Tommy, decided to join them. Amy met her in the living room while Karma was making popcorn in the kitchen.

"Hey, um, Lauren. Could you do me a favor? Could you sit between me and Karma tonight?"

Lauren just laughed at her. "Um, Amy? Don't you think that's a little weird?"

"This whole thing is weird! It's gonna be even weirder if we sit next to each other. God, the tension's so thick you could cut it with a knife."

"Ew, TMI."

"I meant tension tension! Not sexual tension. Although..."

"Just stop! I'm not sitting between you two! If you don't want to watch a movie with her then tell her to leave."

"But I don't want her to leave."

Lauren rolled her eyes. "Whatever, I'm not getting involved."

"Some help you are."

"Just be glad I'm gracing you two with my presence," she said sarcastically as she took residence on the far end of the couch. Karma immediately came in with a bowl of popcorn and took the other end. _Great, the middle_, Amy thought. She sat down and uncomfortably put her feet up on the table waiting for the movie to begin.

Karma held the popcorn bowl and for the first half of the movie, Amy didn't reach for any. It was a new record. She really liked popcorn, but she also really wanted to avoid reaching over Karma.

"Don't you want any popcorn?" Karma asked. "I'm not really hungry, I kind of made it for you."

"I'm not really hungry either."

"Amy," Karma laughed, "you're always hungry."

Amy rolled her eyes because she knew it was true. She reached for a handful of popcorn and started eating. She started to relax for the first time all day. She reached for another handful before she realized she grabbed something that was definitely not popcorn. She almost didn't believe it, so she grabbed a little harder, which only made her want to curl up in a hole even more when she realized it was Karma's hand. She immediately looked down to confirm she had just created an extremely awkward situation, and then looked up at Karma, who was also looking down at the bowl where Amy's hand was.

Neither of them pulled away right away. Amy wasn't sure why Karma wasn't pulling her hand back. Maybe she doesn't want to offend me, Amy thought. Surely, it was Amy making it weird by keeping her hand there. She was the one who grabbed Karma's hand in the first place. Karma hadn't looked up from the popcorn bowl since Amy put her hand in there. Amy still didn't pull away. She looked at Karma until Karma finally looked up at her. Amy smiled before attempting to interlace her fingers with Karma's, prompting Karma to pull back. Amy quickly looked in the other direction before pulling her hand away too, disappointed and embarrassed. To add to the weirdness, Lauren had been watching the whole thing.

"Oh, for fucks sake," Lauren said. "You weren't kidding when you said things would be weird. Smooth moves, Raudenfeld."

"It's not weird!" Karma chimed in before Amy could fully sink into the couch from embarrassment. "It's not weird," she repeated almost to convince herself.

"It is weird," Amy said, her hands over her face.

"No it's not," Karma said, taking one of Amy's hands and holding it with her own. "See? We hold hands all the time. It's fine. Not weird," she shot Amy a reassuring smile.

"Karma, you don't have to."

"I want to. Can we just go back to watching the movie?"

"Okay," Amy said, weakly smiling. She _was_ happy to be holding Karma's hand. As the movie went on, she found herself brushing the back of Karma's hand with her thumb. She also couldn't help but look over at Karma multiple times during the movie, always staring a bit too long. Lauren would look over occasionally, annoyed at how tense the energy in the room was. Eventually, Karma caught Amy staring at her.

"Amy… You're staring."

The blonde immediately looked ahead at the screen. "W-what? No I wasn't. I was just, um. I was just…"

"I can't take this anymore!" Lauren stood up. "You weren't kidding when you said there was sexual tension," she looked at Amy, who's eyes were about to bulge out of her head. "I'm leaving. You two clearly have a few things to work out," she finished before storming out of the room.

Amy looked back at Karma, "I-I didn't say that! I-" she looked at Karma, who looked like she was about to cry. "Okay, I did say that. See? I'm gross. Don't feel bad, this is my fault."

Karma pulled her hand away from Amy and curled up in a ball. "Things aren't going to go back to normal, are they?"

Amy sank even further into her seat. "They will eventually, if we try hard enough. I just need to stop having feelings. It'll happen eventually. I promise. I'm sorry for making things weird."

"No, Amy. Trust me, I want things to go back to normal just as much as you do, probably even more, but they won't. Feelings just don't go away."

"But how do you know that?"

"Because…" Karma started, uncurling herself and sinking in her seat to meet Amy's level. "You're gonna kill me…"

Amy stared at her, waiting for her to continue.

"You know when we kissed at the threesome?"

Amy's eyes widened as she quickly turned her head to stare in front of her. She didn't want to get her hopes up of where this was going. "What about it…"

"I did feel something. It's not just that it was hot. I couldn't stop thinking about you after that night. I only… I only slept with Liam because I wanted to get rid of what I felt for you."

"Karma!"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry," she had a pained look on her face.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Amy's voice cracked, she was on the verge of crying. "After I told you I loved you, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I don't want to have feelings for you, okay? I know that makes me a terrible person because you put yourself out there and you were honest with me but you know what Amy? I'm just not as brave as you. I can't just jump into a relationship with my best friend of ten years. I can't. I won't," she stood up and started pacing the room. "It doesn't matter that I haven't stopped thinking about kissing you. It doesn't matter that I would rather be with you than Liam. It just doesn't matter. I'm not going to risk our friendship of ten years on some stupid two month fling, because you know the breakup rate for teenagers, don't you?" She was talking fast and panicking. "Well, it's high. I looked it up. The odds that we would stay together are extremely low. Do you think we could go back to being just friends after that? Do you? Do you?!"

Amy sat there dumbfounded by all the information Karma was throwing at her. Of course Karma wouldn't admit her feelings for her right away, Karma always had to plan every little part of her life out. Amy felt like an idiot. _Of course_ Karma had feelings too. She was there for the threesome kiss, she saw the look in Karma's eyes after they had kissed. No matter how much Karma wanted to deny it, they were painfully in love with each other. When Amy didn't say anything, Karma continued.

"Of course you didn't think about this. You never think about any of this. I always have to be the rational one." Amy stood up to face the girl who was nearly hysterical with panic. Karma's breaths had hitched so high she was nearly hyperventilating. "Karma, it's okay."

"No Amy! It's really not okay. If I lose you…" Karma was interrupted by Amy's lips crashing against hers. She tensed up at first before relaxing into the kiss as Amy wrapped her arms around her waist, before breaking the kiss and holding her close to her.

"Breathe, Karma." The kiss had calmed Karma down tremendously, and now she was weakly crying into Amy's shoulder.

"I love you," Karma whimpered out. "God dammit, I love you. I can't just be friends anymore. It's too hard."

Amy weakly laughed, "I know the feeling." She pulled herself away from Karma enough to look in her eyes. "Hey, we'll be okay. We're not like everyone else. We've put up with each other for ten years. We've seen each other at our worst, and we still managed to fall in love. Shouldn't that say something?" Amy smiled at her as she brushed a stray piece of hair from Karma's face. Karma couldn't help but smile at Amy's words. She was the only one who could ever calm her down.

"Yeah, I guess it does say something, doesn't it?"

"What are we gonna do with you Ashcroft?"

Karma slumped down against the couch and pulled Amy with her. "Well, we could do this," she said as she leaned over to kiss Amy on the lips.

"Oh, I like it when we do that," Amy said, unable to contain her smile.

"What does this mean? You know, for us," Karma asked nervously.

"I think it means that things aren't gonna be weird anymore," Amy leaned over to kiss Karma's ear.

"I think I like that," Karma smiled.

"I think I like that too."


End file.
